


A Modest Proposal

by genericfanatic



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Don't Judge Me, Established Relationship, I'm so tired, M/M, much cuteness, parts of it copied from a commercial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 12:40:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7508674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genericfanatic/pseuds/genericfanatic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lance accidentally asks Keith a question while high on alien juice. Once he is sober, Keith refuses to say what he had answered until Lance asks the question again.</p><p>Title has no relation to the Jonathan Swift piece.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Modest Proposal

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this and edited it when I wasn't tired, but now I'm posting when I AM tired, so....I don't know what the relevance of that is. I'm just so, so tired.

“Have you heard from Lance yet?” Shiro asked. 

“Nothing on comms,” Keith flew down to the planet’s atmosphere where the blue lion had crashed. Unfortunately, in the midst of a battle with Galra they couldn’t afford to send someone after him. “I’m tracking Blue’s last known location, hopefully he didn’t move too far.”

“According to the reports, the residents of the planet should be friendly,” Allura said. 

Keith rolled his eyes, searching the landscape for a sign of Blue, “What, the reports from 10,000 years ago?” He felt bad. Allura didn’t like to be reminded of how much time she’d lost, but he was very concerned for his missing boyfriend. He had wanted to go after him right after they’d been hit, but Shiro ordered him to keep formation.

“He’ll be okay,” Shiro promised over the comms. “He’s smart, he’s strong. He’ll be all right.” Keith knew in his head that Shiro was right, but it was hard to believe him. 

He nearly jumped at anything blue on the surface, but 99% of the time, it was water. Keith bit his lip, fearing the worst, when there, far below at the base of the mountain, he saw it! The Blue lion, laying on it’s side. Keith dived for it. 

He jumped out of Red the second he hit ground and ran up to the Blue Lion. “Lance? LANCE?” He called in. Thankfully, the lion didn’t look too badly damaged, but it seemed to be knocked out, for lack of a better word. The mouth was hanging open, the ramp on it’s side. Keith dove in, walking on the walls of the control room. Everything was shaken up, but again, wasn’t too badly damaged. The biggest problem was there was no sign of Lance. “Keith to Shiro, I’ve found the Blue Lion, but there’s no sign of Lance, I’ve—“ Keith looked out the eyes of the lion, and saw a small crowd of scaley aliens standing around the red lion. “Hold that thought,” Keith said.

He emerged from the Lion’s mouth and stormed towards the aliens, who were all half his height, “Hey!” He called to them, “Get away from there!” 

The aliens all turned to him. “Another messenger from the gods!” 

“We are truly blessed!”

Keith stepped back, but before he could do anything, the aliens surrounded him and began cheering, “Messenger! Messenger! Messenger! Messenger!”

Keith swallowed, “Uh, hi…” They stopped chanting to listen to him. “I’m Keith”

“Keith! Keith! Keith! Keith!”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” He said, “Listen, you said ‘another’ messenger. Did you see the guy who came out of that?” He pointed to the Blue Lion. 

“The first messenger!”

“The almighty Lance!”

“Lance! Lance! Lance! Lance!” 

Keith rolled his eyes, “Yeah, you met him. Where did he go?”

“We brought him back to our village!”

“He declared his head raged with ache!”

Keith nodded, “Could you take me to him?”

The aliens nodded vigorously. Two of them grabbed his hand and pulled him away from the lions. 

The village was more of a series of tents than buildings. Lance wasn’t hard to find, he was the tallest guy there. The second Keith had eyes on him, laying on a bed, or, a bunch of boxes with a tarp on them, he broke his grip with the aliens and ran to Lance’s side. “Lance? Lance are you okay?” 

Lance smiled up at him, his eyes glassy. “Hey, hey,” Lance said, “Did you…did you know you’re hair is a waterfall?”

Keith frowned at him. “What?” 

Lance blinked, “Hey…hey you look JUST like my boyfriend.”

Keith bit his lip, holding in his laughter. He looked to the side to see what passed for a cup with the remnants of a blue liquid inside. He gave it a sniff. The smell was repugnant. “Oh, Lance,” He said, “Oh, oh, Lance. What I wouldn’t give for a camera,” Smirking, he touched his helmet, “Keith to Shiro, I found Lance.”

“Is he all right?” 

“Well…” Keith looked at his boyfriend, who was babbling some song in Spanish, “He’s not injured. Much, at least. He got taken in by the locals, which, you were right, are very friendly.” 

“Keith!” Lance said, grabbing Keith’s hand, “Do you ever think, like, that fingers are just…tiny arms…that sprouted out of the big arm?”

Keith lightly took his hand away, but Lance looked as though he might cry, so he gave it back. “He’s…they gave him some sort of drink. I think it’s having an effect on him.”

“Oh no.” Coran said, “Is it blue?”

Keith looked back at the empty container, “Yeah?”

Coran sighed over the comm, “Its ballaka fruit juice. The locals have a high tolerance for it, so it’s just a mild sedative for them, but…”

“Let me guess,” He said, looking down at Lance, who was counting Keith’s fingers, getting lost, and re-counting, “It has a stronger effect on other beings.”

Pidge was laughing hysterically, “Please, PLEASE put him on the comm, I’m begging you!” 

Keith shrugged, took his helmet off and put it on Lance’s head instead. This seemed to be incredulous to him, “Dios. Mio. I’m a fish! Am I a gold fish? Wait, there’s no water, I can’t breath! Help me!” 

Keith quickly removed the helmet and put it back on his own head. Lance took a couple deep breaths, “Thank you Keith,”

Over the comm, Pidge was laughing harder than Keith had known was possible. “All right, All right,” Shiro said, “Keith, why don’t you bring him home in Red, I’ll take Allura down to speak with the locals and retrieve Blue.”

Keith nods, “You got it.” He took Lance’s arm and draped it around his shoulders, half lifting him out of the bed. He walked out of the tent to face the aliens. “Uh, so,” He started out, “I need to take the 1st messenger here back uh, back up to the sky.”

“Lance! Keith! Lance! Keith!”

“Right. But, uh, another Lion is going to come down here, soon, and it’ll be carrying two new messengers, named Shiro and Allura.”

“Shiro! Allura! Shiro! Allura!”

Keith gives them a thumbs up, “You got it, guys, good work. Thanks.” He started dragging Lance away from the village back to the lions. After Lance made it evident that he was NOT going to help walk on his own, Keith picked him up. Despite being physically smaller, Keith had always been stronger than his boyfriend.

Lance started giggling uncontrollably after being picked up. He looked up at Keith and gasped, “Keith! I can’t believe you’re here!” 

Keith rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help smiling. Lance was damned cute like this, “Yup, it’s me,” 

“You’re so pretty, Keith, you have pretty eyes.” 

Keith couldn’t help but blush at that, but as Lance reached up and started touching his mask, he pulled away. “Okay, buddy, maybe don’t touch the helmet while I’m trying to walk.” 

Lance instantly teared up, making Keith incredibly guilty, “I’m—I’m sorry,” He said, overcome with emotion, “I’m always messing up.”

“No, you’re not,” Keith reassured him, “You’re doing fine.”

“I just…you’re so great and perfect at everything,” Lance sobbed, “And I love you so much it…it hurts sometimes.”

Keith felt his heart break, but couldn’t help smirking, “I love you too, Lance.”

Lance seemed satisfied with that answer, and his tears started clearing. They reached the red Lion, but Lance still had more to say, “We should just like…go for it, you know? Life…”

“Okay Lance.”

“Keith. Keith you have to listen to me, this is very important. Keith. Keith.”

“I’m listening.”

Keith loaded Lance into the Lion and set him down. Lance looked him dead in the eyes and said, “We should date.”

Keith bit his lip and kept a mantra to himself of he can’t help it, it would be mean to laugh, he can’t help it, it’s not his fault. Very patiently, he said, “We HAVE been dating, Lance. For about a year now.”

“A year?” Lance said, confused, “That’s a really long date…” Keith nodded and got up to sit in the pilot’s seat. Lance then gasped loudly, causing Keith to turn around to make sure he was okay, “We should get married!” Lance said.

Keith couldn’t hold in his snort of laughter nor his blush at that. “Sure thing, buddy.” He said. 

Lance crawled up to him and put a hand on his arm, “Really? You mean it?”

“Mmhmm,” Keith said, giving Lance a light kiss on the forehead. “Now I’m going to fly   
this giant mechanical magic transforming cat into space, all right?”  
This piece of information seemed to overload Lance’s brain, and he spent the rest of the trip back to base thinking about it. 

 

Lance blinked his eyes open, instantly grabbing hold of his own head as it yelled out in pain. With the power of will, he controlled the pain to reasonable levels and looked up.

He was in the med bay at the ship. Clearly he wasn’t in too bad condition, as he wasn’t in the pods. He thought the room was empty at first, but then saw Keith sitting in the chair beside him, wearing a shit-eating grin on his face. “Morning.” He said.

Lance froze, “Oh no.” He said, “What happened?”

Keith blinked innocently, ”I’m hurt. You’re the only one to wake up from a near death experience, see your own boyfriend smiling and be suspicious.”

Lance grabbed his head to keep it steady and sat up, “That’s because I’m the only one to have you for a boyfriend. Now, what happened?”

Keith scooted forward. “Didn’t your mother teach you that when you crash land on an alien planet NOT to drink the weird alien juice they give you?”

Lance blinked at him, “Was I poisoned?”

Keith shook his head, “No, but it looked like that was some pretty good stuff. What do you remember?”

Lance leaned back and thought, “There was a battle…and a planet…and…alligator hobbits?”

He looked to Keith to figure that out, “That was real.”

Lance nodded, “Okay. What about the flying pizza’s?”

Keith shook his head, “No that one was just you. But you were hilarious. You thought you were a fish at some point.” Lance snorted, which hurt, “Then, lets see, you were fascinated with my fingers, and, oh yeah, you said we should date. And then you proposed.”

Lance blinked at him, “W-what?” 

Keith smirked, “It was rather sudden. I would have hoped if you were going to propose you’d at least spring for a ring.”

Lance stammered for a moment. ”That-that wasn’t a real proposal! If I were really to propose, I’d make it the best, most romantic, most awesomest thing ever!”

Keith giggled and sat forward, kissing Lance on the side of the head, making him even more flustered, as he knew it would. “I’d love to see that.” Lance looked up at him, looking surprised and just a touch pathetic. Keith leaned down once again to kiss him on the lips. 

Just when Lance relaxed into the kiss, Keith stood up, “I’m going to go get Coran, I’m sure he’ll want to check out your head injury. I’m glad you’re okay.” He started walking out the door.

“Wait!” Lance called, “What was your answer? What did you say?” 

Keith’s shit-eating grin returned, and he walked out without saying anything.

 

After Coran finished checking Lance’s headwound, Pidge and Hunk came in, each grinning, “Hey buddy,” Hunk said, “How’re you feeling?”

Lance shrugged, “Headache’s gone down. And I’m not high anymore, if that’s what you came to see.”

“What?” Pidge said, hurriedly putting the camera away, “That’s not what we’re here for. We’re here for you. Buddy. Pal. Friend.”

Lance rolled his eyes, “Whatever, you’re the two people I need to talk to anyway. I need your help.”

 

Keith was surprised that Lance was gone by the time he returned to see him. He checked the ships computer that said he was in the engine room with Hunk. He opened the door and saw Lance and Hunk crouched over something. 

Lance turned to him, and for a second looked panicked. Quickly, though, he broke into a smile and leaped up directly in front of him, “Hey! Hey Keith!” He blocked Keith’s view of Hunk, “What, uh, what are you doing here?” 

Keith raised an eyebrow. Something was up. “I saw you weren’t in the med bay and came to check on you.” His eyes drifted over to Hunk, who remained hunched over, but only caught a glimpse before Lance got in between them. “Are you okay?”

“What? Yeah!” Lance said, “Yeah, I’m doing fine, I’m…I’m helping Hunk out with a project.” 

Keith nodded. “I see. What’s the project?”

“The project?” Lance said, rubbing the back of his head.

“Yes,” Keith said, “The one you’re working on with Hunk.”

“Right. It’s…it’s a secret. For the whole crew. So. Only the two of us can know.” 

Of course, at that moment, Pidge walked in, “Hey, Hunk I got that blow torch you want…ed…” Pidge saw Keith at that moment. Pidge tried to quickly hide the blowtorch. “Heheh. Hi, Keith. What’re you doing here?” 

Lance squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to lose his shit. “Pidge, just…go help Hunk.” Pidge nodded and walked away. Keith clicked his tongue at him. “The…the two of us…and Pidge.”

“Lance,” Keith said, teasing him, “You wouldn’t be happen to be keeping secrets from ME would you?” 

Lance giggled nervously. “Whaaaat? Never sweetheart. Babe. Honey.”

“Okay, you’re making it weird now.” 

Lance smiled and kissed Keith on the cheek, “I’ll talk with you tonight, all right?” 

Keith sighed, “All right, but you owe me one.”

Keith turned around and walked away, hearing Lance as he walked away, “You tricked the whole Garrison with a false identity for a year, and you can’t lie for six seconds?”

“Sorry!”

Keith rolled his eyes. Well, if Lance was unavailable, he may as well go check and see what Shiro was up to. He was up at the control room. 

Keith opened the door to see a glimpse of Shiro, Allura, and Coran looking at some sort of device, when all of a sudden, Allura leaped for the door and closed it in his face.

That was the moment Keith was positive SOMETHING was going on. He knocked on the door. There was the sound of a hushed argument on the other side, before Coran came out, closing the door on Allura and Shiro. “Keith, my friend!” Coran exclaimed, “What, ah, what are you up to on this fine evening?” 

Keith frowned at him. “What’s going on, Coran?” Keith crossed his arms and glared at him. Was it mean to use his natural scary nature to get answers? Probably. But so was the conspiracy that was happening against him. 

Coran shriveled under Keith’s glare, “I—I—“ He gulped, “The Princess and Shiro must, um, prepare…for…a state dinner with the Ballaka.”

Keith raised an eyebrow at him, “The Ballaka?” 

“Yes!” Coran said, “The aliens who rescued Lance! It’s, in fact, a favor to them for that very deed. “

Keith sighed, “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

Coran’s moustache twitched, “You know, the Ballaka are quite interesting, the princess was talking with them earlier, and they’ve changed quite a bit from how they were 10,000 years ago.” Coran put his arms around Keith’s shoulders and started leading him down the hall. 

He knew what Coran was doing. This was a distraction, getting Coran to talk to people about history for a long period of time. It was a tactic usually used against Lance when he was getting particularly annoying. Keith knew this because he had more than once set Coran on Lance himself, when he really didn’t want to deal with Lance’s annoying sense of humor. 

Whatever was happening was most certainly Lance’s fault, and Keith was going to get him back for it. How and when was only a matter of time, but for now, he would wait. He would find out eventually. Though with each passing second of Coran’s story, Keith was getting resentful. 

Finally, Allura came and found them, “Keith, Coran, it’s time for the State Dinner.” She looked at Coran as she put the emphasis on the words, as though Keith couldn’t see the lie. Coran nodded and walked off. “Keith!” Allura stopped him before he followed, “The Ballakans have a special garb that’s required at their dinners. I’ve had this one made with the internal cloth replicators.” She presented it to him.

Keith took it out of her hands, “Remarkable how the Ballakan’s special garb is identical to a tux.”

Allura’s smile froze on her face, “Heheh, that IS interesting. Quite the coincidence. You’ll have to tell me more about these tuxes after you put it on.” 

Keith nodded and headed back to his room. “Oh, Keith,” Allura called after him, “Just…once you’re dressed, come to the control room, we’ll wait for you there.” Keith nodded and continued on his way. Whatever was happening seemed to be about to be revealed.

Keith was not overly shocked when he found the doors closed. They were never closed, but given the amount of secrecy happening, it wasn’t surprising. He opened them, waiting to find out what the fuss was about. 

The only person inside was Lance, dressed in a tux as well, waiting for Keith with a grin spread from ear to ear. Around him were the projections of planets that the crew used as their map. 

Keith bit his lip. He was mad at Lance for putting him through this whole three ringed circus, but also, Lance cleaned up NICE in a tux. Slowly, Keith walked up to Lance. The doors behind him closed, leaving the projected planets as the only illumination reflecting of him and Lance. “So,” Keith said, “Do I finally get to know what’s going on?”

Lance nodded, and offered his hand to Keith. “I want to show you something.” Keith took the hand and Lance pulled him in close. He looked up at all the planets around him. ”Do you know where we are?”

“The control room,” Keith said flatly. Lance scowled at him. Sighing, Keith examined the planets again, but it didn’t take long to figure it out, “This is Earth’s solar system.”

Lance nodded, using the hand not wrapped around Keith to pull the image of Earth closer, “This is our home, where we came from. It’s where we met.” Keith nodded, waiting for him to elaborate on this significance, when Lance moved and the map swirled around them. It settled on another planet Keith recognized. “This is where Blue took us, where we found Allura and Coran. Where we first formed Voltron and learned to work as a team.”

Keith nodded again, “Are you going somewhere with this by any chance?”

Lance kissed him on the cheek, “Patience,” He moved again, and the stars and planets flew around their heads. It settled on a planet Keith was not familiar with. “This is Holka. You remember Holka?”

Keith tried to hide his smirk. “It’s where you embarrassed yourself and blurted out your confession to me.” 

Lance rolled his eyes, “It’s also where YOU confessed your feelings to ME, but I digress.” 

He motioned again, but didn’t have to swirl the planets around them as fast. “And this is Valya Prime. Where I took you on our first date.”

“I mean, technically we had our first date on Lion Castle…”

“Keith, we’ve talked about this,” Lance said, “A sparring match is not a first date.” 

Keith shrugged. “It is if you kiss me afterwards.”

Lance smiled looking down at him, “Which reminds me, that this system is ALSO where we had our first kiss.”

The projections and planets reflected perfectly in Lance’s eyes to make them twinkle, and make Keith’s heart pound. Leaning down ever so slightly, Lance pressed his lips onto Keith’s. Keith smiled, closing his eyes and letting himself melt into the kiss. 

He broke off as he saw swirling lights through his eyelids. Lance had changed their position of the stars again, and Keith’s heart sank. “Galra prime…” Keith muttered.

Lance nodded, “One of our hardest missions.”

Keith swallowed, “We all nearly died that day.”

“But we all came out of it alive.” Lance said, “And, right before the battle, we both said ‘I love you’ for the first time.”

Keith smiled, remembering. “That’s because we both thought we weren’t going to make it out of there.”

“Yeah,” Lance shrugged, “But we kept saying it afterwards. So, it counts.” Lance motioned his hand one more time. “This system is where we are right now. Of all the ones I’ve shown you, it’s arguably the most important.”

“Oh?” Keith said, looking at the planet Ballaka they had just rescued, “Why is that?”

Lance retracted the arm that had been wrapped around Keith. Keith turned away from the planets to see what he was doing, and his heart stopped. Lance, biting his lip, got down on one knee and pulled out a small box from his breast pocket. Unconsciously, Keith covered his mouth with his hand, all the mysteries about the day finally clicking into place. 

Lance opened the box, revealing a small silver band, engraved with two lions, with their heads lovingly pushed up against one another. He smiled and gave a small innocent shrug, “You said you’d like to see my real attempt.”

Keith’s eyes filled up with tears, of what emotion he couldn’t say. “Lance,” He said, “I was…I was just ribbing you, making fun. I don’t—You shouldn’t go through all this trouble because you think I want it. I didn’t mean to pressure you into—“

“Keith,” Lance grabbed ahold of his free hand, “I want this. You saying it this morning made me realize…I don’t want anyone else but you, forever. I thought, or, I mean, really I HOPED,” Lance swallowed, “That you’d feel the same way. So. Do you?”

Keith swallowed, looking down at Lance. He tried to think of everything Lance had shown him, all of the history that they had together, the good times and bad, but all he could think about was the previous day. In a simple skirmish with the Galra, Lance had crash landed on an alien planet. There was no reason to think he wasn’t still alive, as he had been through much worse, but all Keith remembered thinking for the rest of the battle was ‘I can’t lose him.’

Keith finally lifted his hand from his mouth and wiped his tears, nodding. “I do,” He said, chuckling and not believing the sound of his own voice, “Yes, I do.”

Lance leaped from the ground, grabbing Keith’s face and kissing him like there was no tomorrow. Keith in turn, wrapped himself around Lance, pulling him as close as he could. 

They broke apart laughing, but Keith couldn’t bear to let him go, and so kept hugging him, tears running down his face. “I swear, if I’m dreaming or something, I’m going to kill you.”

Lance laughed, “I don’t know if I should be complimented on being a dream come true, or frightened that my fiancée just threatened to kill me.”

‘Fiancée’ Keith thought. He broke the hug so he could wipe his tears again. Lance wiped away his own. “Get used to it, asshole.” Keith said. Lance laughed again, and as he wiped his eyes, realized he was still holding the box with the ring. He took it out and held out his hand. Keith, his heart pounding, put his hand on Lance’s, and allowed Lance to push the ring onto his finger.

Outside the room, they heard a cheer that could only have come from Hunk. Lance snorted and said, “I, uh, I kinda had some help putting all of this together.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “So I guessed.” He turned to the closed doors, “You can come in, guys,” He said. 

Needing no more prompting, the doors opened and the rest of their friends came in, grins plastered on their faces. Allura was practically jumping, “Oh, you two look so beautiful! Shiro’s been telling me about your Earth wedding traditions and it all sounds so exciting!”

Shiro was the first to make it up to the happy couple, and patted Keith on the back, “Congratulations. I’m really proud.”

Hunk, meanwhile, put Lance in a headlock and gave him an affectionate noogie, “Holy QUIZNAK! This is so amazing!” He released Lance, his hair scruffled, and smiled at Keith, “Pidge and I made the ring, out of some spare parts we had.”

Pidge nodded vigorously, “The engraving was my idea! My parents have something like that, except it’s doves for them, but I thought lions would be better, you know with the whole—” Hunk reached over and put a hand over Pidge’s mouth before the technician talked forever.

Keith smiled down at the ring on his finger. “It’s perfect. Thank you guys.”

Coran clapped his hands together, “This calls for a celebration! Drinks! Food! Music!”

“An engagement party!” Pidge said, after licking Hunk’s hand, “On Earth, they’re called engagement parties!”

“Wonderful!” Allura said, jumping up and down again.

Shiro was the only one who looked cautious, “That is, if it’s all right with you two?” 

Lance and Keith exchanged a look. Both their eyes were still glistening with smiles and tears. Lance gave a shrug, putting the decision on Keith. Keith sighed and said, “Let’s go for it!” 

While the others cheered and ran in different directions to get everything they would need, Lance pulled Keith in for one more kiss.


End file.
